Today, when the word has gone round
That these people are bankrupt
We on the other continents (which are
indeed bankrupt as well)
See many things differently and, so we think,
more clearly.
-Bertolt Brecht
“Late Lamented Fame of the
Giant City of New York” ‘
T HE 1984 ELECTION IS ONE OF THE MOST
important of this generation. It places no new
or dramatic issues on the political agenda: rather, it
is a test to preserve democratic rights already won-
affirmative action, reproductive freedom, equal
rights before the law, the right to organize at the
workplace, environmental protection. Internation-
ally, it is little more than an elementary test of the
superiority of diplomacy over military force.
In the months ahead, we face an enormous di-
lemma. Reagan is dangerous; Mondale inspires little
confidence. The Right is very powerful, the liberals
in decline and the Left in disarray. The most dire
scenario argues that a second triumph for the Right
in November could mean its dominance until the end
of the century. Already, Reagan’s support among
young voters aged 18-25 has grown astonishingly
over the last four years.
Nonetheless, the long-term challenge is clear
enough. It is to defeat the Right and make the ques-
tions of justice, democracy and peace central to
American life. But defeating the Right-even a suc-
cessful effort to minimize the damage it can do in
the short term-depends on the development of an
alternative strategy, one that genuinely addresses the
needs and concerns of working people, women,
blacks, Hispanics, other minorities, the poor and the
elderly.
ONE OF THIS WILL BE EASY. VIETNAM
is history, the New Left a footnote. An old dic-
tum from the liberal/progressive battles of the 1940s
says that the liberals do the politics, while the Left
has the ideas. Neither is true anymore. We live in a
brave new world, and the political and intellectual
imagination of our time is with the Right.
REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 50For those on the left of the political spectrum, the
decline of Liberalism means a time of searching.
The Left’s own political skills have atrophied; old
analyses, old strategies and old alliances must be
scrutinized and, if need be, changed. The question
at hand is whether we can re-invigorate the goals of
social justice and peace.
The fear of repression is real, and not only the
kind of repression that derives from the law enforce-
ment apparatus. We will also feel the more subtle
repressive climate that results from the ideological
sway of the Right. The change in the intellectual and
cultural climate has already begun; certain ideas and
projects appear suddenly unfashionable, dogmatic
or antiquated; certain books don’t get read or writ-
ten. The dual repression of law and ideology is the
root of the declining standard of living. It means the
impossible burden of medical bills, children who do
not receive an adequate education, minorities trap-
ped in deteriorating neighborhoods, women without
a community of support, workers without the sol-
idarity of unions.
A ND WHAT OF CENTRAL AMERICA? HOW
much will events there be affected by the differ-
ences between the two parties? In contrast to so
many other elections in the last 40 years, the 1984
contest offers much more than Tweedledee and
Tweedledum politics. The positions of the major
parties are substantially different.
The Democrats focus the Central American crisis
within a hemispheric context and downplay-with-
out eliminating-its East/West dimension. Walter
Mondale has promised to end the covert war on
Nicaragua in his first 100′ days. The Democrats
promise a dramatic reduction in the presence of U.S.
troops in Honduras and pledge sincere support for
the efforts of the Contadora nations-Colombia,
Panama, Venezuela and Mexico-to find a neg-
otiated solution to the crisis. The Democrats’ posi-
tion is less distinguishable from the Administra-
tion’s on El Salvador, where it promises support to
the Salvadorean government if it curbs death squads
and human rights abuses and promotes agrarian re-
form. 2
Nevertheless, the Democrats’ position is a long
way from the Reagan Administration’s. It does not
define the crisis primarily in East-West terms. Nor
does it support “democratic freedom fighters” try-
ing to overthrow the “Marxist-Leninist” govern-
ment in Nicaragua, urge a buildup of U.S. military
capability in Honduras, pledge military aid to El
Salvador to fight “brutal” guerrillas without regard
to human rights abuses, or ignore and cynically
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1984
0
manipulate the efforts of Contadora. Those have
been Reagan’s positions, and they are reflected in
the Republican platform.
PPOSITION AT BOTH THE ELITE AND
the mass levels has made the Central American
issue a major line of division between the parties.
Elite debate, as expressed in such journals as For-
eign Affairs, Foreign Policy and The New Republic,
question the character of U.S. hegemony in the
Caribbean Basin. Can the United States live with
leftist regimes-as long as they are not aligned with
the Soviet Union-or must it exercise more direct
control? Does the United States have greater inter-
ests at stake in Central America than in the Middle
East? Can it defend both? Will involvement in Cen-
tral America lead to another Vietnam-style entangle-
ment?
At a mass level, there is strong opposition to cur-
rent Central American policy among the religious
community, the black and Hispanic communities,
Democratic National Convention. San Francisco. 1984.
31Are the Democrats ADifferent?
Are the Democrats Different?
South Bronx, New York, 1971
within the women’s movement, on the periphery of
the peace movement and even within the AFL-CIO.
It is based 6n concerns for human rights and domes-
tic priorities and on memories of Vietnam. Prodded
by this grassroots concern on the issue, Democratic
politicians have tentatively defied Reagan-though
their defiance has been checked by the president’s
successful insinuation that the Democrats will be to
blame if the United States “loses” El Salvador and
Central America.
During the primaries, both the Hart and Jackson
campaigns adopted positions on Central America to
the left of Mondale; so too did some Mondale dele-
gates, in defiance of the classic East-West analysis
of Central America with which their candidate had
started his campaign. 4 The Hart position shared the
East-West framework but put primary emphasis on
local causes. This largely reflected the position set
forth in a report prepared by the Carnegie Endow-
ment for Peace and published as the book, Central
America: Anatomy of a Conflict.
The Jackson position was interesting because it
adopted-virtually verbatim-the position of PACCA
(Policy Alternatives on the Caribbean and Central
America), as laid out in its book, Changing Course:
Blueprint for Peace in Central America and the
Caribbean.
P ACCA WAS FOUNDED IN SEPTEMBER
1982 to build a network of U.S. policy analysts
and progressive Latin American scholars, and to
bring a new dimension of scholarly analysis and pol-
icy backup to activist groups working on the Central
America issue. It also suggests a model for integrat-
ing intellectual and activist work more effectively
into a new progressive movement. PACCA’s work
is an attempt to develop feasible policy alternatives
and to expand the range of political debate to en-
compass progressive views.
Changing Course, its first major endeavor, was
prepared from papers drafted by prominent progres-
sive Latin Americanists and policy analysts and was
offered in January 1984 as an alternative to the Kis-
singer Commission Report. In addition to individual
scholars, its authors included analysts from the Insti-
tute for Policy Studies (IPS) and NACLA.
PACCA sought out the endorsement of more than
500 leaders of the religious, minority, labor, fem-
inist and academic communities. Changing Course
also received the endorsement of Democratic con-
REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 52tenders Jesse Jackson-who adopted it as his formal
position-and George McGovern.
Those arguing for the anti-intervention plank kept
the issue before Democratic Convention delegates
through the Central America Peace Campaign, a
grouping of organizations working on the region, in-
cluding PACCA, IPS, the Coalition for a New For-
eign and Military Policy and the solidarity networks.
Jackson drew many of his advisers on Central
America from the activist community and argued
vigorously throughout the campaign for a new Cen-
tral America policy. Hart, meanwhile, though more
equivocal on questions of Third World nationalism
and self-determination, also mounted an effective
attack on the Mondale position. Under this strong
pressure from his left, Mondale modulated, and
eventually dropped the harsh anti-communist tone
and the bipolar analysis of his original position.
The platform clause on Central America that was
adopted in the end represented a compromise among
the three candidates’ positions, but it leaned heavily
toward Hart and Jackson.
Grassroots pressure over the Central America is-
sue continues to hold the key. It is a constraint on
what the Reagan Administration can do, and lever-
age against the right wing of the Democratic Party
and Mondale’s own Cold War proclivities. It is also,
of course, a message of hope to Central Americans
and an important element in any future mass politics
of the Left.
The moment is a difficult one. The present Demo-
cratic Party is not the Rainbow Coalition, and in this
campaign it may not even be able to find a meaning-
ful place for Jesse Jackson. But in the event of a
Reagan victory, the Rainbow Coalition could
emerge as a future alternative to Liberalism. If Mon-
dale wins, its existence within the Democratic Party
will compel attention to a progressive domestic and
international agenda. In either case, the Rainbow
Coalition will be a key force in the future course of
American politics.
N O STUDENT OF U.S. HISTORY CAN BE
sanguine about the prospects of the Democ-
rats’ keeping their platform promises. It is enough to
recall Woodrow Wilson’s promise “to keep us out
of the war” in the 1916 election, or Lyndon
Johnson’s characterization of himself as a
“peacemaker” against Barry Goldwater’s mad
bomber in 1964. Mondale’s anti-communist track
record and his support for the Vietnam War suggest
he would be a very half-heartedly anti-interven-
tionist president. So does the important support he
receives from AFL-CIO president Kirkland,
long-time Cold Warrior and signatory of the Kis-
singer Commission Report. Furthermore, lacking a
unified vision and buffeted from within by con-
tradictory demands, the Democrats in power may
succumb to bureaucratic pressure within the Penta-
gon and political pressure from the Right to escalate
the Central American war. ‘
Forcing Central America onto the campaign
agenda will not be the problem. Indeed, the Repub-
licans seem likely to raise the issue vigorously in an
effort to keep the Democrats on the defensive. In
July Vice-President George Bush claimed that,
“The Democrats have been working on an errone-
ous premise about what has been going on in Central
America,” and promised that the Republicans
would use “the Latin issue” in the campaign and
denounce the Marxist threat in Nicaragua and the re-
gion. 6 His promise was borne out when the Republi-
can platform listed Central America as the nation’s
key foreign policy problem, before the Soviet
Union, Europe and the Middle East.
T HERE IS A FRIGHTENING CONSEN-
sus in Latin America, in Washington policy cir-
cles and among Central American experts that a re-
elected Reagan Administration will at some time
order a full-scale military invasion in Central Ameri-
ca, perhaps with air-strikes on key Nicaraguan
targets or a troop landing on Nicaragua’s troubled
Atlantic Coast. 7 For the people of the Central Amer-
ican region-indeed, for the whole hemisphere-the
1984 U.S. election may be the most important in
history.
If Mondale is elected, the initial 100-day “honey-
moon” period, in which a new president is allowed
a certain latitude to fulfill campaign promises, will
be his opportunity to turn the tide of events. During
those 100 days, Mondale, as commander-in-chief,
could order a withdrawal of most, if not all, U.S.
forces from Honduras, end aid to the contras, con-
voke a meeting with the Contadora nations and dis-
patch his new secretary of state to pursue concrete
talks with Nicaragua aimed at ending the undeclared
war.
But for any of this to be a realistic possibility will
mean a forceful articulation of the anti-intervention
stance, both within the Democratic Party and in the
broader movement. If those committed to reversing
the present course of U.S. policy remain silent dur-
ing the 1984 election, their fears that an elected
Democratic Administration will sell out Central
America could all too easily become a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
CENTRAL AMERICA, NOVEMBER AND BEYOND
1. Bertolt Brecht, Poems 1913-1956 (New York: Met-
huen, 1976), p. 1 7 1 .
2. Democratic Party Platform, July 1984.
3. The Washington Post, August 18, 1984, citing the
Republican Party Platform.
4. Speech to Chicago Council on Foreign Relations,
March 14, 1984, edited transcript.
5. See Alan Tonelson, “Mondale’s G.O.P. Latin Pol-
icy,” The New York Times, August 24, 1984.
6. The Washington Post, July 24, 1984.
7. For a discussion of possible invasion scenarios, see
Allan Nairn, “Endgame: U.S. Military Strategy in Cen-
tral America,” Report on the Americas (May-June 1984),
pp.51-53.
